Interview: Joziah Longo and Sharkey McEwen

Northern Sky met up with two of the key players in Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams backstage at the Beverley and East Riding Folk Festival, to discuss Pink Floyd, the British invasion and yodeling..


Photograph: Thomas Staudter

AW: Right we're here at the Beverley Festival and I'm with Joziah and Sharkey from Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams, that kind of rolls off the tongue doesn't it?

JL: (Laughs) yes

AW: From Philadelphia?

JL: We're from New York actually, we all met in New York City, I'm originally from Philadelphia

AW: But you're based in New York now?

JL: Based in New York yeah, Hudson Highlands we live

AW: Oh right. I've got to ask you where you got your name from?

JL: You know it's just kind of a revelation you know, we live right near Sleepy Hollow, right along the Hudson (River) and I used to walk in the woods there and this name popped into my head. We were a little afraid of it at first but we stuck with it and it's been very good for us, gets us a lot of press

AW: It gets you press and it's actually, I'm not saying it sums up your stage presence but I think your kind of act needs something like that, you couldn't just have a one syllable name really

JL: Well I'm glad you think so, some people think we're insane for having such a long name

AW: So am I right in thinking it's a family band?

JL: Well in a way you could say that, we're either family or best friends in the band and we actually get along with each other, which is a unique thing to us for any band we've ever been in before you know, so we're kind of a family band in a way. My twin sons play in the band just for the Summer actually, they're full time at school, art school. So yeah, we're a family band at least for the Summer

AW: So it's Joziah and Sharkey, you're the guitar player?

SM: Yes

AW: And slide mandolin player?

SM: (Laughs) Yes that's right, just on one song, but yes that's a fun thing

AW: Well I think that when you first came on stage you mentioned Pink Floyd..

JL: Yeah someone said we're a kind of hillbilly Pink Floyd and over here they shortened it to 'The Hillbilly Pink Floyd' so that's cool, that's not a bad gamut to have to fill, it lets us move pretty freely through things. Somebody else said we're like David Bowie made Hunky Dory with the Band in the basement of Big Pink (laughs)

AW: Well I heard some of this coming through especially when you were doing the slide mandolin bit, that was like Echoes or something from the Meddle days

SM: Yeah

AW: You put everything into your performance and there's not been anything quite like that, certainly not this weekend at the festival..

JL: Hope that's a good thing

AW: It's a very good thing, of course your reputation came before you but with small festivals like this, you only have to get up on the stage, make yourself known and then the word gets around and before the end of your set, they'd all come along to see you, I mean that marquee was full

JL: It really was, it was a great crowd too, I mean everybody was really wonderful, when you looked around it was eyes that were really open. It was a very family kind of feeling

AW: Well you appeal to all ages I think. I say kids at the front who were really rocking towards the end. I'm really intrigued by this, but just before you played Bob Dylan's "Gates of Eden" you said you was going to do your King Crimson number, what could that be, go on tell me..

JL: We do a song that we always say is a tip of the hat to early King Crimson around the Court of the Crimson King period, I love that album. That's their most 'songy' type album, so we do a song called "Talking to the Buddha", that's a favourite by a lot of people, we don't get away with not doing that song if they know us. But that's a big epic movie type of song, so that's one end of the gamut, you know

AW: Well you obviously get your influences from a lot of diverse sources

JL: What we've started doing in this band as you see, we're not with any label, we had a lot of the majors come after us in the States but we're not with any label or anything, we're free to exactly what we want. Some of our songs are eight minutes long you know, it's just that we play what we love, what we've loved in our lives and for me the whole British invasion was like a major influence on everything that I do, so that just comes out unashamedly

AW: Well if anyone had said earlier that there's going to be a band on this afternoon playing "She Taught Me How To Yodel", and it going down well I probably wouldn't have believed it

SM: (Laughs)

AW: That went down a storm that song

JL: Yeah it did. The yodel's the other end of the gamut right?

SM: Yeah that's it right there

JL: The hillbilly Pink Floyd served us well there

AW: Well you're going to be touring around, you've got a few more shows in the country

JL: Yeah we do and we're back here in August which we're happy to know, we just found that out today, so that was a lovely introduction to the area

AW: Does this happen, do you get people coming up to you after a gig saying they want to book you?

JL: Yeah we do, we do quite a bit and I think on this tour we're hoping it will happen a lot. Jim Driver brought us over, Pat Tynan's been doing radio for us and stuff like that over here, but it's just friends really, there's nobody organising us, we're pretty disorganised so it's all word of mouth, if people saw us and like it, then please spread the word 'cause they're the power that be.. there's no 'man' behind it you know

AW: We shall indeed

JL: You know we're really happy that people took to us here you know, 'cause for us our whole relationship with the UK is purely fantasy, you know we had the British invasion so that the whole Beatles, Stones, Animals everything, we see a very idyllic child point of view of it. So when we're here it's really magic to us. Everywhere we go, you know you live here so.. yeah, and it's fun for us because you know, over here because there's so much British invasion, you here the very American stuff in there, very hillbilly American stuff, but the British invasion really influenced us. My father was playing in a country hillbilly band and was playing in the basement like I talked about in the show, when the British invasion hit and then it shifted to Beatles, and the Zombies and all that stuff, and when we first came over here we got to play with the Zombies and the Animals at the Rhythm Festival and then people seemed to get what we were doing. I wasn't sure how people would feel about it so it's been a magic relationship. It's like being with your cousins you haven't seen for a long time

AW: Well just before we finish we should go through who's in the band; you're Joziah, you're sort of the leader of the band

JL: Yeah, lead singer

AW: Sharkey you're the guitar player. Tink?

JL: Tink plays accordion, cello, theramin, flute a whole bunch of stuff; she plays anything, she's one of those Irish musician types, her family is all musicians. Anytime we go through a town she finds another instrument and plays it. Chen plays bass, Orien plays keyboards, vocals and various percussion things. Tony is our drummer extraodinaire, I think he's possessed by Keith Moon I'm telling you, he's pretty wacky

AW: Do you replace your sons when they're back at school or do you just go out as a four piece?

JL: Well we were a four piece, we tuned down a whole step to cut our guitar so we could cover the bass end but we're not sure what we're going to do when the boys go back to school full time, we'll figure it out but it'll be fun, we'll figure out something

AW: Well I'm absolutely sure that with maverick's help and with just touring around the UK you're going to get quite a reputation for yourselves so it's been wonderful meeting you

JL: Same here

AW: And all the best

JL: You too

SM: Thank you Allan


The Great Unravel by Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams is available now from the band's website:

www.slambovia.com